Neptune!

[kneejo]

woohoo! made it to neptune.. in just 2007 days! What a beautiful planet it is. I spiced up an XR2 with the 'easy' engine settings, just to be sure, but it seems I might not need that. Some Hohman spreadsheet gave me a launch window, but as usual, TrnsX gave me a shorter route, with a little more dV, 15.6K at the trans-neptune injection. (I think the XR can do this without the spiced-up engines.)

Time-acceleration set to 100.000x, pausing every year to check trajectory and only having to do very minor corrections. I estimated I needed about half an hour in real time, but it was so much fun it took me 4 hours.

Braking at arrival didn't go well. I under-estimated the effects of this colossal planet. I'm gonna go back to a save-game when I entered Neptune's SOI and do it neatly. And then try landing.. :hmm:

 

[n72.75]

Neptune is my fav. planet to visit, it is so different from the others.

 

[the.punk]

Yes. Neptune is a nice planet.
Do you want to land on neptune....:blink:..or on a moon?

 

[n72.75]

Yes. Neptune is a nice planet.
Do you want to land on neptune....:blink:..or on a moon?

The moons are a better option. Although you could go amonia surfing, I hear this time of year the winds are nice and strong.

 

[TMac3000]

Neptune is my fav. planet to visit, it is so different from the others.

I've always liked Uranus (deliberately pronoucing it YOUR-in-us) myself.

 

[kneejo]

some screenshots are in my member gallery

the other blue marble

funny thing is, when I looked back, the sun had shrunken to a small dot, even smaller than Jupiter.. they were in close alignment, visible just above the cockpit in the dark picture.

and about landing.. I think I'll go for Triton. I seem to have a base there.. Landing on a 66 kilometer peace of rock like one of the other moons could be tricky. I wonder if I can orbit such a thing.

---------- Post added 10-05-2009 at 01:54 AM ---------- Previous post was 10-04-2009 at 09:48 PM ----------

and landed on Triton. weird moon.. it's orbiting the other way around.

anyways.. now to find a way to get back to earth.. never tried that before.

 

[Keatah]

Neptune is a serious planet.

 

[n72.75]

anyways.. now to find a way to get back to earth.. never tried that before.

It's kind of a down hill ride...

 

[kneejo]

a down hill ride.. yeah I got that. I point the yellow orbit line tingy at the sun and hit the thrust.. Trying to get a more precise arrival with TransX, which I thought I understood.. ah well, keep trying, keep trying, keep trying..

 

[ijuin]

If you're going to rendevous with the moons, remember that Triton orbits retrograde relative to the other moons!

 

[Killer Toilet]

Wanna do something slightly difficult?

Orbit Nereid.

 

[kneejo]

If you're going to rendevous with the moons, remember that Triton orbits retrograde relative to the other moons!

Yeah i found that out already. TransX was not impressed

 

[flytandem]

(snip) Braking at arrival didn't go well. I under-estimated the effects of this colossal planet. I'm gonna go back to a save-game when I entered Neptune's SOI and do it neatly. And then try landing.. :hmm:

Remember that TransX works well at planning the insertion burn when arriving at a planet. This way you'll know how much dv and when to do it.

 

[kneejo]

allright.. I finally made the return trip. From Triton to a retrogarde orbit around Neptune, then added 20K dV (only had 5 years oxygen left so had to hurry) and encountered Earth at the other side of the Sun. Did my first rather succesfull re-entry (only 500 km overshoot, gotta practice this more ) and landed at Wideawake. Earth-Neptune: 2007 days, one day to go to Triton, then the trip back back to Earth took 1882 days. It was quite an educational experience